JÄGER Group engineers better business operations with Dynamics 365

Hanover, Germany-based JÄGER Group has provided innovative rubber, plastic, and metal solutions for mechanical and plant engineering, environmental, energy, and agricultural technology, and oil exploration since 1942. To update its operations, provide more modern tools to its 1,300 employees, and connect every entity to a central data source, the company upgraded nearly every aspect of its business to Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Aging tools challenge growth and service standards

More than 1,300 employees at 20 companies and legal entities in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Canada, the USA, and China make up third-generation family-owned JÄGER Group (JÄGER). JÄGER is focused on designing, producing, and delivering rubber, plastic, and metal solutions for the most demanding industrial requirements. For years, the company relied on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and a variety of independent software vendors for operations such as electronic data interchange (EDI), document management, production planning and control, and sanctions list checks.

As the company added entities, locations, and services, leadership determined that its aging, highly customized on-premises solution was increasingly insufficient to the task and lacked key features needed to mitigate modern cybersecurity risks. At the same time, the team recognized the need to assess and overhaul operational processes to meet the pace of JÄGER’s growth and customers’ evolving expectations. If the company was going to continue keeping its promise to “bring together what belongs together,” it was time to standardize, centralize, and modernize by upgrading to Dynamics 365.

Standardization spurs change

JÄGER went all in with Dynamics 365, selecting Finance, Project Operations, Supply Chain Management, and Sales including capabilities for production, customer relationship management, purchasing, warehouse management, project management and financial operations. The company engaged Prodware as an implementation partner. According to Christian Nolle, Head of Digital Services at JÄGER Group, the project wasn’t seen as simply a technology upgrade. Rather, he says, it would be “a complete solution that runs on every user’s device no matter where they are located or what they are doing.”

With a goal of using as many standard features as possible, the implementation team soon realized that most of the company’s processes would have to change. The team reviewed internal procedures for tasks from manufacturing and invoicing to sales and shipping, comparing them to out-of-the-box features in Dynamics 365. The differences were clear, as were the improvements. As Paulo da Silva, Project Lead at JÄGER Group puts it, “The dream of end-to-end standards in ERP systems is neither entirely feasible nor pure wishful thinking. It is a complex journey that requires careful planning, flexibility, and a keen understanding of the company’s specific needs and constraints.” The team understood that in the long run, adjusting processes from tailor-made to standard would save time, increase accuracy, provide real-time data visibility, scale as the business grows, and allow the company to offer better customer service.

In fact, JÄGER’s implementation used 95% of standard Dynamics 365 features, eliminating almost all the legacy customizations. According to Nolle, “Working from a standardized, shared system has been transformational for us. The effort to change our processes was worth it and we made very few modifications in the end, mostly to customize some views or change a dashboard.”

Centralization improves sales processes and customer relationships

In the past, each sales team developed its own processes to track leads, proposals, offers, and contracts, using email and spreadsheets. Not only was monthly reporting a manual and time-consuming process, but it was often challenging simply to tell what stage a deal was in or who had spoken to a prospective customer last, resulting in a cloudy pipeline and duplicated effort.

Now with Dynamics 365 Sales, sales teams are using a single customer relationship management solution for the first time. Dynamics 365 Sales helps them identify leads, track opportunities, and manage customer interactions more effectively. Sales processes have improved and so have customer relationships.

With offices and manufacturing facilities in six countries, keeping up with regulations was often a cumbersome process. Now, Dynamics 365 makes it easier to meet legal requirements and remain in compliance every step of the way. For example, starting on January 1, 2025, German businesses must be able to receive electronic invoices. E-invoicing has been rolled out to JÄGER’s offices in Germany, enabling them to meet the new requirement.

Modernization makes a world of difference

JÄGER began its rollout at its German headquarters in 2022. The Netherlands followed in mid-2024, with three plants in the U.S. and locations in Germany, Poland, and potentially China and India, set to join them. After employees completed a brief training course on Dynamics 365 and were comfortable with their new work environments, positive feedback started coming in. Although standardization increased the number of steps in some processes, in the aggregate, operations are more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable, thanks to more transparency in inventory and warehouse management and more efficient processes overall. As Marius-Quintus Jaeger, CEO at Jäger Group puts it: "The successful rollout of our Dynamics 365 cloud ERP system marks a strategic milestone for Jaeger Group: With seamless connectivity, secured data availability, and a strong foundation for AI-driven innovation, we are shaping the future of our company – agile, connected, and visionary."

Fewer customizations, lower IT costs

JÄGER moved from a highly customized system to one that uses 95% out-of-the-box capabilities and is continuously updated with new features and enhancements, ensuring compliance with evolving legal and security requirements. With Dynamics 365 and a trusted partner for occasional support, in-depth IT knowledge and effort are no longer required to keep the system running smoothly. JÄGER is realizing significant reductions in IT infrastructure, maintenance, and staffing costs.

Integration built in

Dynamics 365 integrates easily with third-party solutions for document management and EDI. And with deep integration across the Microsoft ecosystem, standard processes, a common data model, and modern tools, employees can dig deeper in-context. Without leaving Dynamics 365, they can access data readily available on dashboards with deep links to reports, emails, history, and even external sources. Says Nolle, “Using this deep integration is still a vision and in process, but it’s clear to see where it ends, and it’s a good ending.”

Easier intercompany transactions

Approximately 20% of the group’s business is intercompany projects and transactions. For example, rubber belts used in production of parts for the agricultural machinery and equipment industry might be manufactured in Germany and sold to a JÄGER plant in the US. Dynamics 365 automates intercompany transactions to easily and accurately capture these sales.

Dynamics 365 is even helping track its own deployment. A multi-year project like this one involves many internal employees strategizing, planning, and executing. The implementation team is using Dynamics 365 Project Operations for such activities as capturing time spent on the project at each location and developing schedules to help keep work on track and hours accounted for.

More sustainable off-premises datacenters

JÄGER Group is committed to minimizing air, soil, and water pollution in its production and logistics processes and at its offices. Legacy systems make such commitments increasingly challenging given the amount of energy required to run and cool on-premises servers—especially in buildings that receive a lot of direct sunlight. Before selecting Dynamics 365, JÄGER leadership visited a Microsoft datacenter in Dublin. The team was impressed by how energy-efficient the modern facility is and how much easier it is to maintain in a cooler climate like Ireland. Migrating to the cloud from an on-premises system is paying off—financially and environmentally.

JÄGER Group’s digital transformation is still underway, but as Nolle confirms, “In the end, we will have a fully integrated environment that is no longer just an ERP system. It will be a complete solution that we can scale to meet the needs of our business for many years to come.”

Future additions include AI

Other JÄGER entities have migrated or are planning to migrate to Dynamics 365, but a new JÄGER Group company, Jaeger Maritime Solutions GmbH, will implement Dynamics 365 from the start. The new company specializes in offshore wind energy, maritime economy, and environmental and marine technology, offering noise mitigation solutions to reduce damage to sea life during construction of offshore wind turbines and sustainable basalt products used in scour and erosion protection. It’s expected to go live in early 2025.

JÄGER Group will continue to bring more locations online through 2026 and plans to explore using Microsoft Copilot and Power Automate to reduce repetitive tasks. Nolle predicts, “It’s still a vision, but when we reach the point that AI tools are guiding and supporting us in our daily processes, we will have achieved a very important goal.”